An intersting item from Free Government Information. It seems that 56 000 maps from USDG were held for ransom. Jared Benedict purchased the public domain maps from the USDG for $1600 and threatened to keep them unless he could recoup the cost. Once the cost was recouped, he offered to make the maps freely available to all via Internet Archive. Needless to sat, the money was raised, in less than a day! A very interesting and proactive way of creating access and preserving these maps and offers possiblities for the future, at least in the US.

More free info is being offered by Google. Now you can print off books from the public domain in print-ready format.